Missing (12 page)

     “Her name is Sarah. She is thirty two years old, brown hair, brown eyes. Five feet seven inches and one hundred and five pounds.

     “At this time, we don’t know if she is injured or sick. However, she spent the night in these woods in light clothing without aid of food, water, or fire. So as a minimum she is cold, hungry, thirsty and probably scared.

     “Let’s find her and get her back to her loved ones as quickly as possible.”

     The volunteers were still in formation and therefore not allowed to speak. But they collectively breathed a sigh of relief. None of them were looking forward to happening upon chunks of torn flesh that had once been part of a human body.

     This was definitely good news, and meant that they would perform their mission with gusto. Instead of dreading the possibility of being the one to find human remains, each man now hoped that he would be the one to find the missing woman and bring her back safely.

     These men were no different than any other men.

     All men, at heart, enjoy playing the hero role.

     Even if the woman they’re dashing in to save is someone they’ve never met, and would likely never see again.

     Weiss gave Captain Martin an area elevation map, marked with the location Sarah was last seen, as well as the areas she usually went to pick her flowers. He also emplasized that Martin’s men were to remain in their designated search area.

     That was at Frank’s request. Frank didn’t want any of the soldiers to come across the walls of the compound and wonder what might be behind them.

     That done, Weiss left Martin and his team to do their thing and had Sergeant Smith return him to the compound and his operations center.

     The trip back was marked by complete silence, until they arrived back at the compound.

     Weiss emerged from the staff car, sighed, and said, “I suspect we’ve got a very long day ahead of us.”

Chapter 21

     In the center of the main building the compound’s residents lovingly referred to as “the big house,” life had taken on a frantic pace

     Oh, everyone tried to pretend it was normal. But it was anything but.

     The children still went to classes after breakfast, and were told to avoid the main lounge, and to let their Army guests work in peace.

     The adults who weren’t part of the search party went about their daily chores and duties. But then they did additional chores to cover for those who weren’t there.

     It was especially hard on the kitchen staff. They not only found themselves with thirteen extra mouths to feed. But now they were preparing dozens of sack lunches to be taken to the searchers if they weren’t back by noon.

     And once that batch was gone, they’d start preparing a second batch for their supper.

     They didn’t mind. The people they were feeding were there to help find three of their own, and to bring them back home. They’d do whatever they needed to do to help in the cause.

     Helen, Rachel and Megan appointed themselves as a hospitality team, although no one asked them to do so.   

     They placed a folding table exactly halfway between the compound’s security desk and the operations center set up in the main lounge.

     On the table they placed two large pots of coffee and three trays of cookies and fresh fruit.

     The coffee went quickly and had to be refreshed often.

     It took Helen awhile to understand exactly why.

     She assumed it was because most of the men had been up all night, and were trying their best to stay alert.

     And that was part of it, to be sure.

     But the main reason was because Lt Col Weiss’ team couldn’t get enough of it. They’d been drinking coffee from cans that had been ground years before, and was bitter and stale. It wasn’t what they wanted, but it was all that was available.

     But this… this was coffee that was recently grown, in a greenhouse. Karen grew the plants from coffee beans ordered off the internet shortly before Saris 7 hit the earth and did its damage. She carefully cultivated them for eight long years. First in the salt mine’s tiny greenhouse, with artificial sunlight. Then in the larger greenhouses of the compound, where the plants thrived in the abundant natural light of the sun.

     Several of the men commented on how great the coffee was.

     “I’ll tell you what,” Karen had told them. “You find our people and bring them back here safely, and I’ll give you some plants to take back with you so you can grow your own coffee beans. I’ll even teach you how to roast and grind them. Just bring our people back to us, please.”

     She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but her pleas would go unanswered.

Chapter 22

     Hannah awoke with a start.

     Despite Joel’s best efforts to keep her awake, she’d dozed off. And now the pain in her midsection was approaching unbearable.

     It wasn’t a pain from an external injury to her body, though. At least she couldn’t feel any lacerations, nor see any blood. It was a pressure pain. Her abdomen had filled with blood. Blood that wasn’t supposed to be there. Blood that was leaking from somewhere within her. Blood that would continue to leak until her veins ran dry and her heart stopped beating.

     Or, until someone came to rescue them.

     Them…

     It occurred to her that Joel, her knight in shining armor the day before, was gone.

     She looked to her right, where he’d been laying at her side. He had vanished.

     Her eyes moistened.

     Now she was troubled.

     Had she imagined Joel from the beginning? Was he nothing but a hallucination, something her mind created out of nothing, to help her cope with being the only survivor?

     Was her hero, the man who’d talked her through the worst of the pain, just an illusion?

     Was the heat from his body that helped warm her in the chilly night just her imagination?

     Was she really all alone?

     Was that the way she was meant to die? Alone, lonely and frightened?

     With great effort, she lifted her head. And in the light of the early morning sun, she once again saw the arm.

     John’s arm.

     But wait. If Joel wasn’t real, then perhaps that wasn’t John’s arm after all. Perhaps it was the arm of the pilot, or the co-pilot. Or the crewman who’d buckled her in.

     The crewman who may not have been named Joel after all, but maybe something else.

     Then she saw the marks, just on the other side of the arm.

     And the dried blood in the dirt, now covered with dozens of tiny ants.

     They were the drag marks Joel made with his body as he crawled around the fuselage the day before, coming to her aid.

     It was the blood he’d shed from the leg he’d lost during the crash.

     Or maybe the other leg. The shattered one. Hannah remembered that it, too, had been covered in blood.

     So Joel was real, after all.

     And if he was real, then he really did tell her that John had died. That he was under the heavy wreckage. That she’d never again get to hear him talk, or laugh, or scold her for being silly.

     That made her incredibly sad.

     She thought of Sami. How she must be taking the news that the helicopter had crashed.

     And how she’d take the news when she found out her father hadn’t survived.

     She sobbed for her friend.

     But the tears weren’t coming, and she couldn’t understand why.

     She didn’t understand that when a human body suffers severe dehydration, the tears are one of the first things to go.

     She was nearing the delusional stage now. Her mind was easily distracted, and having trouble telling the difference between what was real and what wasn’t.

     She looked up to see little Markie, staring down at her with sadness in his eyes.

     “Come on, Mommy, get up. We’re supposed to go fishing today, remember?”

     “Well hello, tiny sailor.”

     “Mommmm, you said you weren’t going to call me that anymore. I’m all grown up now. I’m not so tiny anymore. You said you’d call me big guy, remember?”

     Hannah managed a weak smile and looked up at her son.

     “Oh, yeah, I remember. I’m sorry, big guy. Are you going to catch a bigger fish than your Daddy today?”

     “Oh, yes. I’m going to catch a fish that’s bigger than Daddy’s head. I told him so. And guess what? He’s going to teach me how to gut it, and scale it, and clean it. But he says he has to filet it. He says I’m too young to use the knife. He says I might cut off my fingers.

     “I don’t think that would be very good, if I cut off my fingers.”

     “No, it wouldn’t, big guy. That wouldn’t be good at all.”

     “Mommy, are you going to get up or not? Daddy’s waiting over there in the boat, and he says you better hurry up or we’re gonna leave you behind.”

     “Oh, he did, did he?”

     Markie nodded his head with conviction.

     “Well, you go tell your Daddy that I’ll be along shortly, and if he leaves me behind I’m gonna bop him on his head.”

     Markie found her comment incredibly funny.

     “For the reals?”

     “Yes, sir. For the reals.”

     She watched as her son trotted off to give the message to his father, marveling at how fast he’d grown and how tall he was getting.

     And she was so proud to be the little boy’s mother.

     Then something else caught her eye.

     It was an incredibly ugly bird, as big as a turkey and covered with nasty brownish-gray feathers. A bird with a humped red beak, a crooked neck, and beady eyes.

     Hannah didn’t know what a turkey buzzard looked like. If she had, she’d have turned away immediately.

     Instead, she was mesmerized, wondering why such an ugly bird should pay her a visit.

     And what in the world was he tugging on? It looked like… a large chunk of meat. But where would a large piece of meat come from in the middle of the forest?

     And why was she in the middle of the forest, anyway? And what was the…
thing
on top of her?

     Gradually her vision grew cloudy. Then the world went black.

Chapter 23

     When Hannah emerged again from her darkness there was no more pain. Her belly was still badly swollen, but her nervous system was mercifully shutting down.

     After a split second of sheer panic, she turned her head to the right to see Joel lying beside her, propped up on one elbow, studying her intently.

     “Did you leave me?”

     It was more an accusation than a question.

     “Yes, for a little while. I remembered that the co-pilot always took a cooler full of bottled water and kept it behind his seat in the cockpit. I went to find it, and to see if any of the bottles survived the crash.”

     “Oh, that would be wonderful. I am so parched. My throat hurts from being so dry. In fact, it hurts when I talk.”

     “Whisper. That’ll help. And you didn’t seem to have much trouble talking in your sleep, although your voice did crack occasionally.”

     “I talked in my sleep? Na-uh.”

     “I swear to God. Who is Sammy?”

     “Sami Jacoby. She’s the daughter of my friend who died when we crashed.”

     She sobbed, but was too dehydrated for the tears to come. It was the first time she said the words aloud… that John had died.